


i'm your wolf, i'm your man

by fragilelittleteacup



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternating Timelines: 1995 and 2012, Anal Sex, Bikers, Blasphemy, Changed Title (2017/06/12), Double Penetration, Drug Addiction, Drugged Sex (Consentual), Exhibitionism, First Meetings, First Time, Group Sex, Internalized Homophobia (minor), Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, Not Beta Read, Oral Sex, Pole Dancing, Possessive Behavior, Prostitution, Rough Sex, Stripping, Unsafe Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-07 23:17:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 17,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11069124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilelittleteacup/pseuds/fragilelittleteacup
Summary: Rust had sworn to himself that he was leaving certain things behind. Things that came for him at night, like the memory of a stubble-roughened, cocaine-dusted mouth rubbing up against his neck and murmuring,you feel so good.(An AU in which Rust decides to rejoin the Iron Crusaders in 1995. Ginger/Crash, Marty/Rust.)





	1. the calm from emptiness, duetted with my body heat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hieroglyphics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hieroglyphics/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Rust had sworn to himself that he was leaving certain things behind. Things that came for him at night, like the memory of a stubble-roughened, cocaine-dusted mouth rubbing up against his neck and murmuring, _you feel so good._

He’d told Marty that he’d run with the Iron Crusaders for a while, hadn’t told him _how_ he’d managed to infiltrate that godforsaken place, that ninth circle of hell populated almost entirely by slack-jawed pitbull men.

 

***

 

He’d hung around the bar for a while, leaning back in his chair, eyes half closed as the noise of the biosphere around him turned to an unending animalistic roar, his body warm and fucked by the drugs he’d taken. It was almost painful, the way the world closed in on his existence with a physical force, squeezing him so tight that his head turned into a bouncing balloon that careened in stupid directions whenever he had a gulp of his beer. Alcohol sloshed down his front, dripped sticky over his chin. The bartender said something, and Rust– _Crash–_ told them to get fucked. He was here on a _mission,_ god fucking damnit, and he would _not_ be interrupted.

He only got the idea when a biker left the back entrance door open for too long, and the guard went off to have a piss. Drunk and high enough to forsake all possible consequences, he ambled through the doorway as if entering another world. His mind was razor-sharp, spinning like a tornado, the scene before him like a renaissance painting. Too bright, too _real,_ for him to stand. The men looked over at him sparingly, but no one really gave a shit. Figures reclined and lazed, gathered around a roaring fire, and Rust thought of the angels, with their pink cheeks and cherubic smiles. He thought of how far humanity had fallen, and realised he was with the devils now.

_And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the dead-eyed junkie. Amen._

He noticed a girl dancing. Spinning around the pole, her tattooed body mostly naked except for cheap panties and a stripe of black tape over her tits. She gave him a glance, and he stared at her, noticing the disproportionate thickness of her thighs and the solid roundness of her juvenile waist. She looked young, which was probably why she was here– easy money for a girl with no skills beyond the body she’d gotten from her momma. But she’d fade out soon. Prey to old age and a diet high in the salty, dripping, grossly saturated fat of burgers and fries.

 _I can do better than that,_ he thought.

 

***

 

He came back the next day in a new leather jacket. He was high again. He knew that it made him looser, more nimble as he slid through the world like a snake, gliding past hallucinations and people like they were one and the same. Right now, after smoking a hit of something black and vile, they pretty much were. He went to the bar again and waited.

Soon, the bikers came out. With their rodent eyes and their greasy, unwashed hair, hands eager and itching for a new ass to molest. Crash (because he _was_ Crash, now) reclined on his seat, elbows planted behind him on the bar, legs spread wide enough to make any sane man question just _how much_ he loved pussy. Crash knew what he looked like. He knew how to manipulate. He had his hair slicked back with the barest hint of gel, had left his face untouched by makeup or any of that girly shit. No, these men… they’d be looking to _fuck,_ not to make love. They didn’t want a pansy. They wanted a _fight._

One of them looked over. He had a viking’s beard, hair twisted into a plait that looked warlike and oddly threatening. His dark eyes were pure intent, burning into Crash’s like he wanted to do this _right here, right now._

Crash had a slow drag of his cigarette. Let his legs slide open further, jeans straining against his knees.

The guy walked up to him, put his hands on Crash’s thighs. Warm and heavy.

No hesitation.

“I put on a show, you hook me up,” Crash told him, “can be private, or public. Your choice.”

Part of him roiled with queasy disgust when the man smiled, but Crash was done adhering to any kind of moral code. Somewhere else, someone else’s child was dead, and all he wanted was to unashamedly submit to this amnesia. She was not his. He did not care. He was _Crash,_ now.

The man moved closer, grabbed Crash’s junk. Squeezed, moved his hand around, watched Crash close his eyes and breathe in deep.

“You ain’t even told me your name yet, friend,” the guy drawled, “we oughta start off on a polite note, don’t you think? Name’s Ginger.”

Crash rolled his lip under his teeth, bit down, let his mouth shine in the dim fogginess of the bar. A bare bulb swung overhead, undulating shadows turning their faces into monstrous approximations of human features. Ginger moved closer, fingers tightening like a threat. Crash moaned.

“Ginger, huh,” he let the barest tremor sneak into his voice, “awful creative of you.”

Ginger laughed. “You’re a real fuckin’ smart guy, aren’t you?”

Crash hissed, shifted on the seat. He could feel himself getting hard, which was a surprise. Heroin usually dumbed him down into absolute flaccidity. Obviously the shit hadn’t kicked in– or hadn’t been strong enough to bother with in the first place. He was almost excited to see Ginger could get him, if this ploy worked. Bikers like these tended to have some professional-grade shit stored in the grimy backspaces of their rooms.

“Crash. My name’s Crash.”

 

***

 

Ginger took him to a bare, disgusting bedroom, and Crash knew that if he had a blacklight with him then the place would’ve been lit up like Christmas. But he didn’t care.

Ginger sat at the head of the bed, fly undone, hand resting calmly on his stomach as he watched. There didn’t seem to be any rush, and Crash was beginning to realise that he’d actually picked a _clever one._ Ginger’s eyes were ablaze with arousal and primal violence, but he was also restraining himself. _Just my luck,_ Crash thought, _just my fucking luck._

“Get on with it,” Ginger told him with alarming softness, his voice silky, crinkly smooth, reminding Crash of sonnets and witchcraft. He swayed on his feet, let his eyes close as that voice washed over him. He could feel his bones cracking to the muffled beat of music in the other room, could feel his brain like a heavy slab of rock.

He eased the leather jacket off his shoulders, body moving, undulating slowly. Easy-like, nice and relaxed. Ginger’s head fell back slightly, his eyes moving up and down like a wolf might consider his prey. Rust arched his head back, mirroring Ginger, mouth opening in a sigh that sounded too loud for the silence between them. The leather jacket landed with a hushed thud, his arms twining upwards as his head then moved downwards, eyes closed now as he pretended to bashfulness, grinding his hips like he _needed_ a body against him.

Ginger inhaled sharply.

Crash took that as an instruction, unspoken and primitive, and he toyed with the hem of his shirt, palms spread flat, fabric dragged by his fingers. He let Ginger get a taste of it, see flashes of a hard, flat abdomen. Better than the softness of unsure girls. Better than it being _easy._

“Fuck,” Ginger sighed, sounding awed.

Foreplay.

Endless foreplay.

Crash bent and twisted and arched, until eventually his shirt was gone and his pants too, his underwear tight and plain. Black, just how Ginger would expect it. He knew he had a nice ass. He let Ginger take a good, long look.

“Like what you see?” He murmured, turning his back on Ginger and curving the small of his back, fingers massaging skin, his body now pumping with drug-induced warmth. He knew he’d have been cold otherwise. But they were together in this indulgent purgatory, both of them elevated beyond physical discomforts. Ginger had shed his leather jacket, taken off his shoes.

“Fuck yeah, I do. Christ.”

It lasted only a little while longer. Crash was thinking about what would happen next. It wasn’t that he was clueless (he’d have needed to be a _fucking moron_ to miss the look on Ginger’s face or the tightness of his pants), he was just wondering whether he’d be able to get it up. Whether he’d be able to enjoy it. He figured that with anyone else it wouldn’t have mattered… but Ginger. He was _smart._

He’d notice.

Crash knew he’d have to give in entirely. Knew he’d have to _participate_ in this.

When Ginger ordered him over, Crash turned around, gave in to it. Crawled forwards on his hands and knees, the mattress bare under him. The lack of sheets only made him more aware that he wouldn’t be able to hide during the act, but he figured it was a good thing. _All bets are off,_ he thought, _head down, ass up, all fucking bets are_ off, _motherfucker._

If he was going to pimp himself out, he may as well go all the way.

Ginger grabbed him by the neck, yanked him into a rough kiss– and Crash moved against him, arched into it, moaned quietly. Not enough to be obvious, not pornstar-loud, but just enough that Ginger cursed and told him to _hurry the fuck up, jesus fuckin' christ._

This close, Ginger’s face was almost handsome, in a childlike, brutish way. He leaned forward, fast and unpredictable, pinning Crash to the bed and blanketing him with his body. Crash gazed up at him with barely-lucid desire, letting his eyelids flutter. He knew he was too roughened and coarse to be _pretty,_ but he still looked young. He still looked demure and ready to be defiled, with his soft curls of hair and his bright eyes.

“Jesus…” Ginger breathed, face stunned like he’d just discovered religion, “You’re…”

Crash licked his lips. “Get the fuck on with it, then.”

Ginger smiled, wide and hungry like a wild animal, Crash’s daring insolence succeeding in its goal. After that, Ginger didn’t bother humping him or prolonging the moment. He yanked off the black underwear, pulled it down Crash’s legs. His hands wandered, grabbing and smoothing, feeling scars that Crash had accumulated over his years as a cop. He seemed to like what he saw, because he lifted Crash’s legs up around his shoulders and got down to business.

Crash jolted and shuddered, Ginger’s hands doing to him what no one else ever had before. One finger, then three, and then Ginger was shifting forward, his jeans shoved down with utter disregard for the fact he was fully dressed when Crash was naked. This was not to be an _equal relationship._

When Ginger finally pushed into him, hard and fast, Crash cried out, eyes squeezed shut as his body went taut, every muscle tensed. Ginger seemed to like that. This was _honesty._ He wasn’t faking, like all the others, because he didn’t know how.

“Shit, yeah,” Ginger praised him gently, his words at odds with the cruelty of his body, “you’re so beautiful, boy.”

Crash gasped and whimpered, breaths blowing out hot and shivery, hands clutching at Ginger’s shirt as if he could steady himself, or make Ginger slow down. His cheeks were reddened, halfway between a virgin’s blush and the chronic dehydration of a drug addict, and when Ginger rocked against him, burying himself deeper, he let himself cry at the feeling.

The room was dark, and it didn’t go on for long. Crash gazed up at the ceiling, mouth open and his face mindless with the intensity of sensations he didn’t have the capacity to understand, let alone process. He only realised that something was _building_ after he came, shuddering and trembling. Ginger fucked him faster, all business and no bullshit, not bothering with superficial compliments or promises that he’d _be gentle._

Eventually, Ginger came inside him. No condom, of course. This was the real deal. Bummed-out city, a junkie whore.

Crash winced when Ginger slipped out of him, wet and foreign.

“So,” Ginger put his jacket back on, wiped himself off before he did up his jeans, “you want coke or dope?”

 

 


	2. i'm still running from the fire, the fire, the fire

Years later, Marty’s voice hummed down a static phoneline, telling him, _Listen, I talked to Weems and, uh, dude is cookin' for some motorcycle gang out of Texas. Iron Crusaders._

Rust went still.

 _Fuck,_ he thought.

 

 


	3. i got a gun for a mouth, and a bullet with your name on it

Later, they were in Rust's kitchen.

“That’s a long time,” Marty was telling him quietly, his voice tender and more gentle than Rust could ever have expected, “bein’ like that.”

Rust flicked the needle with two fingers, gazing blankly at the amber liquid and wishing it was something else entirely. He could hear the ache in Marty’s voice, telegraphed as clearly as the concerned stares he kept shooting Rust when he thought he was safely hidden in the periphery of Rust’s attention ( _god,_ Marty was so _kind_ sometimes that it made Rust _want things)._ He could feel his definitions shifting, melting into something darker, the lines of his body becoming tight and raw and visceral. The physicality of this, the violence of becoming Crash again, was a metamorphosis, and he knew Marty could _see it._ He could smell it, sense it, like prey flinching in the face of a threat. Rust was leaving himself behind, slicking his hair back again, wearing tight singlets and loose belts. Gone was his philosophy, his nihilistic theories, his doctrines on the pointlessness of it all. He hummed out short, slurred sentences, let Marty dwell in the drawling apathy of his voice. True _indifference_ , lethargic and stoned, empty and bored.

“We need a good story to move fast, and I think I got one,” he told Marty, avoiding his concern entirely, _deliberately,_ “all we need is some good coke.”

Marty flinched, dragged his tongue over his teeth. He nodded as if he weren’t worried.

Rust would’ve avoided his eyes, looked down at the ground, over at the wall. But _Crash,_ he looked straight at Marty, eyes dark and seductive in their disinterest. He undid the belt on his arm, flexed, watched Marty glance downwards, sweating under the intensity of Crash’s stare.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.” He smiled. Tilting his mouth up languidly, letting the sharp point of one canine show. Marty blinked.

“…You’re lucky I trust you, crazy fuck,” Marty muttered.

Crash laughed and got up off his seat, swaggering away.

Marty stayed where he was.

Tried not to be obvious as he watched Crash leave.

 

***

 

Ginger was a guard dog by the fire, his pupils black as pure hashish, his irises ice-blue tinged with dirty brown flecks. His whole leather-wrapped seafaring viking look was unchanged after all these years, and Crash looked him up and down as he approached. Ginger smirked, a tattooed girl at his shoulder. Crash glanced pointedly at her. _What the fuck is this,_ he said with his eyes, looking back at Ginger, _you got so fuckin’ complacent that you’re happy with the cheap shit?_

Ginger saw his scorn, grinned. Gestured for the girl to leave.

Crash stood before him, hips canted forward, shoulders dipping backwards in a lethargic slouch. He tilted his head, presenting himself, saying, _here’s the goods, motherfucker._ He knew how the fire was glowing against his skin, knew how the shape of his face would be exaggerated by flickering shadows. He’d let a curl of hair dip down his forehead, remembering how Ginger loved to grab him by the hair as they fucked.

“Been a while, Crash,” Ginger told him.

“Sure has, man.”

Crash dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, just to see Ginger look at his mouth, just to confirm that this plan was going to work. When he got the reaction he wanted, he grinned, still biting down. Dirty, easy,  _fun_ Crash. Oh, how Ginger would've missed him.

“You got a smoke?”

Ginger reached into his pocket. “Got somethin’ better.”

A shotgun shell. Filled with white powder, probably something pure, something so potent that Crash would be loose and _beyond_ ready to be fucked. Ginger shook the contents onto the skin between his thumb and his forefinger, held his hand out.

Crash knew this game.

He walked forward, knelt. Glass and dirt and ash on his knees, the remnants of endless partying and fucking that had gone on here since the god first said, _let there be light._ The kind of violence these bikers enjoyed, it hummed in the veins of every red-blooded, two-legged mammal who knew that fucking was not only essential to the preservation of their species, but also to the perpetuation of madness.

 _After all,_ Crash thought, letting his eyes dip closed as Ginger’s hand settled against the bare curve of his neck, _who the fuck wants to be sane?_

“What’d you cut it with?” He muttered, as if he didn’t know already.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Ginger replied slyly, “you’ll dig it.”

Ginger’s hand rose to his hair ( _predictable,_ Crash thought, almost fondly), yanked him forward. Forehead down, mouth against fingers. Crash took a deep breath in, snorted the meth down fast.

A shudder pounded through him.

Then, he was lost in oblivion, body falling forward, head in Ginger’s lap as he panted. Ginger laughed, moved his hand, just to feel the way Crash’s head lolled limply into his touch. Crash tried to remember how to breathe, eyelashes twitching, mouth making hollow, helpless sounds. Ginger mussed his hair, strangely gentle and thoughtful in the same way he'd been all those years ago. He liked to  _take his time_. Liked to have himself a good, thorough grope whenever Crash was near, whether Crash was lucid or not. Like most metheads, he enjoyed tactility, because his particular vices tended to amplify physical sensation.

“Heard you’re down for makin’ some kinda deal, Crash,” Ginger crooned, “now, that’s some tricky shit, ‘cause I don’t know you like I used to.”

He brought his boot up between Crash’s legs, not gently. Crash grunted, or maybe he moaned. Difficult to tell, what with his mind shooting a path straight up into the stratosphere and all.

“I need somethin’ from you tonight. Now, you dress the part still, but I’m wonderin’ whether that’s just an act. You still got the guts, Crash? You ready to give me what I need, so we can get down to _business?”_

Crash barked out a breathy laugh, arched his hips into Ginger’s heel just to feel the pain. Jesus fucking Christ, he had _missed this._

“You know it, _motherfucker.”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shitt, i cannot even BEGIN to describe how much i love rust's stint as crash in canon  
> (also: i'm changing it up, chapter titles will now be taken from Royal Blood songs)


	4. i got love on my fingers, lust on my tongue

Crash slipped through the crowds, guided by Ginger’s hand on his ass, stumbling and sliding, head inclined backwards slightly. It’d been a long time since he’d done this, but that didn’t mean he was _bad_ at it. Christ, he was anything _but_. Leering faces were salivating at the sight of him, and hands stretched out to grab him as he staggered smoothly forward. He let them touch him how they liked, gazed around with loose-jawed indifference. Ginger coerced him to the centre of the gathering, by the fire and the gin-soaked pool table. Apostles of the road (with their leather and their madness and their _honesty)_ followed like spectres, a crowd closing in on them.

In the middle of the pack was Crash, arching against Ginger’s body. Like some kind of sacrifice, fresh meat for the bikers to fuck.

“We got ourselves a _treat,_ boys!” Ginger announced to the crowd, holding Crash out in front of him like a human prize, pressing his leather-clad body up against Crash’s back. He hummed, grabbing a handful of Crash’s hair and roughly jerking his head to the side, just so he could bite down into the skin of Crash’s neck before the show got started. Crash let his eyelids flutter, gaze weighed down by drugged boredom. He lifted a hand, closed his lips around a tightly-rolled blunt while Ginger sucked a bruise over his jugular.

No one rolled hits like fucking Ginger. He was a _pro_.

When he was done, Ginger shoved him towards the metal pole, shining like some beckoning totem in the glow of the bonfire. Crash went willingly. He lost his leather jacket on the way, slid it off his shoulders, heard the holler and cheer of those watching. Music was playing, something heavy with bass guitar, and smoke wafted around Crash’s head as he got started.

He danced his hips from side to side, still smoking as he toyed with the fly on his jeans. When he was done taking a deep, steady drag, he pulled the cigarette from his mouth, placed one hand on the pole, leaned his torso back as he undulated his body. Pressing his hips against the pole, thrusting his groin against the metal slowly. He held on with one arm, used the other to pull at his shirt, at the waistband of his jeans. Let his head tip back, let them see the long, graceful arch of his neck.

The noise around him was snarling, humming, purring arousal. They liked pussy, these men, but living like outlaws led you to disregard the convention that tormented normal citizens. They were apart from the repressed order of things, rats of the underworld, and Crash knew he was not going to leave this place without being fucked within an inch of his life.

He offered them a rhythmic trance, felt his bones adjust to the violence around him (and the drugs inside him, oh, _how he’d missed the drugs)_ , his frame loose and raw. The movement of his body was subconscious, too natural and fluid to have been taught, and he put his cigarette back in his mouth so that he could reach up and drag his long fingers through his hair, tug at curls and waves just to emphasise their allure.

 _Come on,_ his body was moaning, _come feel me, come touch me, come map the way skin and muscle folds over bone, come do what you like…_

He lost his shirt. Undid his fly, let the denim dip open. Then, eventually, slid the jeans down too. He’d worn plain black underwear, just as he had on the first night that Ginger had fucked him– he wondered if Ginger appreciated the reminder. He’d have glanced around to check, but the world around him was a fiery mess of flesh and chaos, blurred by the potency of the meth Ginger had given him; he was rolling with the hit, letting it take him over completely, and pausing would probably have meant collapsing. He was a shark. He couldn’t stop, or he’d sink. (That would come later, he knew, when he was surrounded by bodies and could slip away into oblivion while they did what they wanted to him.)

So he continued dancing. Gyrating, nearly naked now, body putting the supposed controversy of Elvis to shame. Oh, those young girls in the audience, screaming in delight– if they had’ve seen Crash, they probably would’ve fucking _imploded_.

The metal pole was slick between his thighs, hard against his calves as he lifted himself up, let himself glide downwards. Over and over and over.

The light from the fire slipped over him, orange surging against his skin, painting him as he moved. Hands came up to touch him, play roughly with his nipples, and he moaned, feet coming to rest on the ground. He let his head fall back against the shoulder of whoever it was that had lost their patience with the foreplay. When fingers toyed with the bullet scars over his ribs, he grinned.

_Of course it would be you, Ginger. You sentimental fuck._

As if encouraged by the boldness of Ginger (or maybe they had been waiting for it all along, whispering, _come on boss, we wanna fuck that sweet ass already)_ , others joined them.

Crash closed his eyes and had another hit of the blunt that Ginger had rolled him, a strange calmness bleeding through his body; there was just _something_ about being surrounded by clothed bodies, leather sleek and cool against his bare skin, that made him docile as a sedated feline. Where Rust was bitter and _difficult,_ Crash just wanted a good time. He just wanted an excuse _not to give a shit,_ to be put in a position where submission was his only option. So he moaned, uncaring, as a man grabbed his jaw and kissed him harshly, forcing a tongue into his mouth. He tasted bourbon and hard, straight whiskey (mixed liquor tended to be standard fare for men like this). Another biker, this one even rougher, palmed at his dick with enough intent that Crash assumed they _wanted_ it to hurt. Someone else slid their fingers under fabric, along the curve of his ass, and pulled off his underwear.

A pulse of arousal and fear cut through the haze of drug-induced laziness. He was totally naked now.

 _Yeah,_ he thought, _no fucking going back._

He braced himself on someone’s arms, grabbing at leather, the blunt tumbling from his mouth as Ginger’s fingers wandered down, seeking, pressing, probing inward. The crowd of men around him unzipped. Crash was too-warm, stated by the fire and by the hand that had wandered between his legs. He inclined his head to the side, seeking out Ginger’s lips, eyes closed, curls of hair falling in his face. Concrete was cold under his bare feet, but he didn’t care. He’d be on his knees soon anyway.

“Not backin’ out, are you, Crash?” Ginger breathed, trying to sound mocking, but Crash _knew the truth–_ he knew that Ginger couldn’t fucking resist him, couldn’t do anything but worship him like this. He whimpered anyway, made it sound like he was at least a little unwilling. Because that was half the fun, wasn’t it?

 _My cup runneth over, baby, the sacred honey pot. Come have a fucking taste._ _Force me down how you like._

“Fuck you, Ginger,” he moaned.

Ginger laughed.

 

 


	5. come out and get some

Marty had never felt so much regret in his life.

Jesus Christ, here he was; sitting in a car outside a biker joint, backup for the most self-destructive motherfucker on the planet, useless as tits on a bull. He’d brought a book with him in hopes of being able to distract himself, but there was no way he could forget the way Rust had _been_ lately. Marty's heart had broken clean in half that morning he’d walked into Rust’s kitchen and seen him gazing blankly ahead into that tiny goddamn circle of a mirror– and the emptiness, the distant coldness, that wasn’t even the worst of it. Marty had been _expecting_ that.

It was what had come next that was worrying him.

Rust had transformed into someone else. It wasn’t like he was putting on a show, acting up for the job… he was a _different fucking person._ He’d slipped into that bullet-battered leather jacket like it was a second skin, walked around running his hand over his hair, sucking in breaths through his teeth mid-conversation, words flat and disinterested instead of sad and nihilistic. He’d stopped smoking constantly, which would’ve been a good sign if Marty hadn’t known full well that cigarettes simply didn’t satisfy the needs of this _Crash_ character. The fine dusting of white on Rust’s kitchen bench was evidence enough of that.

Something was pounding through Rust’s blood, roaring to be _let free,_ and this new version of him seemed like he just may be inclined to unclip that monster from its tight leash.

_Listen, I don’t know how this guy I’m meetin’ tonight feels about me-_

_What the fuck does that mean?_

_It means,_ Crash had growled eagerly, _if you lose track of me tonight, keep this fucker handy._

He hadn’t looked afraid. Not like before, when he was telling Marty about the cartel, when he was replying  _not really_ in response to Marty asking him if he actually wanted to do this. No, this man, this degenerate king, he _wanted_ this. He wanted a gunfight, he wanted this to go wrong, he wanted to submerge himself in cocaine and feel the ground disappearing under the wheels of his motorcycle.

And that was what frightened Marty the most. The thought that Rust would leave.

Worse still, it wasn’t like he could _blame_ Rust for wanting to take off. Fuck, they treated him so badly at the CID that he was bound to crack eventually, in a way far more destructive and permanent than slapping Geraci across the face like the fat bastard deserved. Marty had never tiptoed around Rust (because hey, the guy gave as good as he got), but the idea that Rust was about disappear into the dark world of drugs and violence made Marty regret every single snide comment he’d made to Rust’s face.

“Fuck this,” Marty muttered, unbuckling his seatbelt and tucking his gun into the back of his jeans, “fuckin’ asshole-”

He went out into the night, a cap over his head, and knew the moment that he stepped into the bar that he stood out like a sore fucking thumb. No way he’d make it out back without being beaten half to death. He looked around, considered the people crowding the bar (most of whom looked like they’d seen the inside of a cell more than once in their lives), and decided he’d have to go about this fucking ingeniously in order to avoid a confrontation.

But first? He needed a drink.

 

***

 

Crash unfurled his tongue and swallowed down a cock expertly.

It didn’t take much skill to be like this, not when you were as high as he was. So loose and easy. He moved his neck sinuously, eyes closed, sucking his cheeks in tight. Hands were all over him, turning his skin pink, pinching and grabbing. He found the violation easy enough to take, even when someone knelt behind him and the fingers in his ass were replaced by a blunt, painful pressure. He let out a choked hum, body jerked forward by the force of the thrust with which one of the bikers pushed into him. His eyes watered, but that was just physical. They hadn’t prepared him enough– but shit, if he was shocked by that, he _deserved_ the pain. He’d known what he was in for the moment he signed up.

He’d been expecting it.

“You look so fuckin’ tight, homie,” Ginger whispered excitedly, licking a wet stripe up Crash’s cheek. Why the fuck he insisted on using manly terms of endearment in the midst of a _gay orgy_ was beyond Crash, but hey. Bikers were weird like that.

He dredged an answering groan up from the depths of his throat, but his enthusiasm wasn’t genuine. And Ginger, being Ginger, could tell; he reached down, one hand gathering up Crash’s cock and stroking him, the other pinching Crash’s nipples, twisting and rubbing them until Crash was squirming, making whined noises that may have translated to _stop it you motherfucker_ as much as they may have meant _more more more-_

“He likes it.” A rough voice said, pleased and curious. Another hand landed on Crash’s body, two palms slicking his cock now. Crash moaned, eyebrows drawing together in a desperate frown, and _oh,_ the other man liked that. He gripped Crash tight just to see his naked body tremble. Just to see him try to jerk away, when he was being fucked from both ends and couldn’t get out even if he wanted to.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the same voice, “that’s it, shit. Look at you, taking it so good.”

Crash wanted to mock him for viewing that clumsy handjob with any kind of pride, but his arm was being lifted and a cock was being pressed into his hand, so he figured that insults would have to come later. (Heh- _come later._ ) He got down to the business of jerking the man off, felt denim against the edge of his palm as he slid his fingers up, down, up, down-

“Such a good boy.”

Crash opened his eyes, gaze sharpening in annoyance. He glared at Ginger, who grinned back and drew his thumb up under the head of Crash’s dick. Crash practically convulsed, eyes snapping shut, and Ginger chuckled. The guy Crash was servicing with his mouth smacked him on the head for letting his teeth get in the way.

“Not so high and mighty now, are you,” Ginger said, tone syrupy and patronising, “ _boy.”_

 _Oh, you motherfucker,_ Crash wanted to say, but all he could do was whimper.

The slapping of skin, primitive and ancient, was filling the air, and the come-slick slide of the cock in his ass suggested his first customer was nearly finished. Calloused fingers grabbed his spare hand, lifted it so that he was palming yet another ungratified cock. He could hear other men jerking off, lazing around drinking beer while they watched the free show (waiting for their turn at his ass or his mouth), and he knew that he had a fucking _long_ night ahead of him.

But someone was strapping a belt to his arm, slapping his bicep to make his veins stand out, and _fuck_ , he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else on the goddamn planet.

A needle slid beneath his skin. He nearly came.

 

***

 

Marty finished off his whiskey, making a face at the petrol-strong burn as it made its way down his throat. He sniffed, glanced again at the solid door between him and Rust, and settled on Plan B.

He left the bar, putting his hands in his pockets and pulling his cap down low. He had never been very good at being undercover, and resentfully thought, _fuck Rust for making me do this._ He went wide, disappearing into the dark, circling around the bar so that he could get an idea of side-entrances, or even windows into what was going on beyond that door. Rock music, hard and heavy, blared distantly. He swatted a mosquito away from his face. He could hear the hush of water nearby, smell the stink of bayou water, and knew he had to watch his step. This was the wilderness, not suburbia.

He was so out of his element that it wasn’t funny. Realising that _this_ was Rust’s idea of a _holiday_ … well.

That was fucking terrifying.

After a few minutes of skulking around in the night, he got a good fix on the perimeter of the bar. It was surrounded by a chain-link barbed wire fence, and patrolled by a lazy, drunk biker who unsteadily gripped a bottle of vodka in one hand. He was only walking small bouts, and didn’t seem to be inclined to venture along the stretch of fence that was surrounded by waist-high grass.

Marty licked at his lips, got ready to run.

The moment that the biker was distracted (taking a swig from his bottle with a hunger Marty knew oh-so-well), he sprinted forward, squatting down in the grass, the soles of his shoes soaked through with mud. His breath was thick in throat, heart hammering fast, and he crouched low. This felt like a fucking _movie,_ Christ. If he ever made it back to civilisation, he was going to be thankful for every single goddamn moment of banality he was offered.

He stayed still, papery reeds of grass against his face. He waited for the guy to walk off. When he finally had a clear view of the Iron Crusader’s party ground, he peeked up, head poking above the patch of grass.

He could see a crowd of people, a few others dotted around, all with their attention fixed on what was happening in the centre of their gathering. There was a thrum of voices, loud and brash, but… something was off. They sounded too calm to be fighting, yet it wasn’t just conversation. Marty squinted, the spotlights from the bar blinding him, and tried to figure out what they were doing.

The night hummed and chirped gently around him, the silence deafening in contrast to the music that was thumping in the distance. He frowned, trying to figure out why a group of the Crusaders were… kneeling?

The realisation hit him hard.

He put a hand over his mouth, tried to keep quiet.

Rust was on his knees, bare thighs spread, his body being rocked violently by the man fucking him from behind. All the attention was on _him._

 _No way,_ Marty thought, _no way, no fucking way-_

Had Rust planned this? Had he known this would happen? Had he undressed willingly, or was this something worse, something more horrid than Marty could comprehend?

Marty watched, feeling sick, as one of the bikers bent down, stabbing a needle into Rust’s arm with practiced ease. Rust, whose mouth had been occupied, jerked his head back and cried out. His shout (visceral and raw, pitched higher than normal) cut through the air. The guard patrolling the fence heard it, turned to briefly consider the scene before turning away, laughing quietly. He sounded anticipatory, like he was eager to have a go too.

Marty wanted to throw up.

One of the bikers grabbed Rust’s face, forced his length down Rust’s throat again. Rust was shaking like he’d been electrocuted, the drug sending him into a fit of sensation. The guy behind him moaned, sounding shocked, and Marty’s unwilling mind made the connection, knew that Rust's ass had tightened around the cock inside him, knew that the man was coming hard enough to see stars.

_Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my fucking-_

He couldn’t leave. He wanted to flee as fast and far as his legs could take him, but that wasn’t an option. Not with Rust like this.

Marty watched as the biker behind Rust pulled out, stood, and tucked himself back in. Another man knelt, pushed inside Rust like it was nothing, and got started.

Marty wanted to close his eyes.

But he couldn’t look away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my goddd  
> i can't believe im writing thisss


	6. curse the ground where you kneel

It really was amazing, how casual a group of men could manage to be while someone was being fucked on the ground a few feet away.

After the bikers were finished with Crash, they took up their now-lukewarm beers, downed them and then quickly moved onto harder spirits. They generally wandered off to shoot some pool or share a hit around one of the bonfires, the novelty of live-action entertainment having worn off now that they’d shot a load into Crash’s ass or mouth. Some stayed to watch. There were a few women present, biker queens with oily black hair and sleeves rolled up to reveal crude tattoos, but they didn’t seem interested in getting a piece of Crash. Most of them were working girls anyway, and spent their time being the first course before the main meal. But _fuck,_ none of them could take it like Crash. He couldn’t blame them for it, no one could; there wasn’t a human being alive who could take a fucking the way Crash could.

He let the drugs (oh god, they kept pumping him up with _substances,_ and he couldn’t keep track of what he’d taken) drag him down into a place between unconsciousness and waking. Everything was very… _smooth,_ despite the best efforts of the men slapping him around and pounding him deep enough to make their dicks ache. All he was aware of, really, was warmth. He could distantly feel himself being spread wide, his body closing and opening, yielding and tightening, giving and giving and _giving._ But it wasn’t painful. It was _dreamlike,_ a trip like none other, and he wondered how the fuck he’d ever given this up. No wonder Rust was a cranky motherfucker who refused to let anyone touch him– Crash had enjoyed so much _fun_ during his time with the Crusaders.

Nothing could compare to this.

Ginger was always near, touching him in some way or another, but he didn’t seem inclined to take off his pants or shove his dick in Crash’s mouth. This in itself wasn’t too much of a shock, because Crash knew Ginger wanted to be the very last one to fuck him (he was cute like that), but what _was_ weird was that Ginger kept _kissing him._

“What’re you doin’,” Crash slurred when his mouth was finally free, the taste of come thick and salty against his tongue, “th’fuck, Ginger.”

Ginger regarded him with amusement, yanked Crash toward him by his neck. Their lips met, Ginger apparently not minding the taste, and Crash would’ve slapped him away but he was too high to know how his hands worked. He was hanging limply now, held up only by other men, his body floating in the humidity of his intoxication, spinning and lurching to the pace of the thrusting inside him. Shit _,_ he was tripping _hard_. Any other day, he might’ve been concerned, might’ve said he wanted to stop.

Not today.

When Ginger was finally done kissing him, he pulled back and stared at Crash. His eyes were unreadable, heavy with an emotion Crash couldn’t begin to decipher. He wasn’t smiling.

“Lookin’ awful serious, huh,” Crash observed drunkenly. Behind him, a biker took hold of Crash’s hips and slid into him. Crash barely blinked. Ginger, in truth, wondered if Crash even noticed.

Ginger nodded silently in reply, an earnestness to his expression that probably would’ve chilled Crash to the bone if he had’ve been in possession of his mental faculties. Ginger wasn’t a soft motherfucker, he never had been– he had killed many times, likely would again, and he didn’t take anyone’s shit. He’d never let feelings get in the way of the job, had learned that lesson real young (in a way that had stuck well into his adult life).

But _Crash…_

Fuck, Ginger was falling in love all over again, just looking at him.

Crash was older now, not as virgin-innocent as he’d been once, but he was still fucking magnificent. He was like a well-oiled gun, something classic and rustic like those Smith & Wesson antiques, engraved and snug in their owners’ palms. He was strong, vicious, a real _badass–_ yet here he was, panting quietly as he was fucked, a soft sheen of sweat covering his skin, cheeks flushing hot and pretty. Ginger had never known another man who could take twenty dicks in one night without compromising his masculinity. Not like this.

He braced his hand over Crash’s jaw, thought about blossoms unfurling in the spring, and wondered when he’d gotten so goddamn poetic. Crash had that effect on him.

Crash choked out a cry when the man behind him thrust in particularly hard, and Ginger struggled to contain the possessiveness that flared up inside him like poison. Crash’s hair fell into his eyes, unmoussed and messy, his head jerking in Ginger’s hold.

“Aah,” he groaned brokenly, “ _Christ_ ,”

Ginger let his jaw go sharply, watched his head drop. Immediately, hands grabbed him, a new cock for Crash to suck. His throat arched, long and elegant, and Ginger wanted to drag him away _right fucking now,_ go show him whose dick he _deserved-_

But he wasn’t stupid. He knew the price of compromising comradery among his fellow outlaws.

So he stood, leaving Crash to get fucked, and went to go get a beer.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ginger catching feelings........  
> (also this fic may be developing an actual plot and i kinda feel cheated. i swear im incapable of just writing porny oneshots lmao)


	7. heartache to heartache

LOUISIANA STATE POLICE CID

STATEMENT OF: _HART, Martin Eric_

TIME OF STATEMENT: 2012-05-14, 13:02:32

[TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT]

PAPANIA: _What’d you think? You, paired up with him?_

HART: _What’d I think? [laugh] Well, you don’t pick your parents, and you don’t pick your partner. You know, they used to call him ‘The Tax Man’ for a while? He’d come out of Texas, so nobody knew him. [pause] Seemed a bit raw-boned to me. Edgy. Took three months till we got him over to the house for dinner, around our big 419. That's what y'all want to hear about, right? Dora Lange? The kids in the woods?_

GILBOUGH: _Yeah, sure. But, uh, talk about Cohle. We heard some stories._

PAPANIA: _Kind of a strange guy, huh?_

HART: _Yeah. Yeah, he was. [long pause]_

GILBOUGH: _Detective?_

HART: _Look, why, [frustrated] Why do y’all wanna hear about him? What’re you lookin’ for? He disappeared back in ’95._

GILBOUGH: _We know._

HART: _Then what is this?_

GILBOUGH: _We heard he was an ace-case man. We’d just like to understand his process._

PAPANIA: _And close a file we have on him. His disappearance is still unsolved._

_[long pause]_

HART: _Okay. Okay, sure._

[END TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT]


	8. trying to figure it out

The night crept on, the chill of darkness settling heavy over Marty, making the hysterical heat in his chest even more alarming. He was wondering how the _fuck_ this could be going on so long, how the hell Rust had this kind of _stamina._ He figured Rust had to be high, otherwise he was a goddamn superhuman.

He’d given up on concealing himself in the grass around the time that the wandering Iron Crusader abandoned his post at the fence and joined the party. He almost wished the bastard had stayed, because now he had no excuse _not_ to look at Rust. He was hungry, tired, and cold, and all he wanted to do was go home– and he didn’t want to see Rust like this, didn’t want to witness his partner straddling the waist of some stranger, sliding down fast and moving his hips, fluid and smooth, pausing when another man came up behind him and entered him roughly.

Marty didn’t want to feel a spark in his chest, didn’t want to think _so fucking hard_ about the fact that Rust could take two cocks at once like a fucking professional hooker. He _didn’t_ want to recognise the tightness in his throat, the impulse creeping beneath his skin that yearned for touch, for stimulus, for _release._ He’d never looked at a man twice, not like this, and now he had no choice. And it felt... good. Far better than he would ever admit aloud. He wanted to reassure himself that he wasn't a queer (that he didn't feel  _more turned on than he ever had before),_ but he was trapped within his own consciousness, unable to declare any kind of convincing denial when he was sporting an erection harder than steel.

He hoped Rust had a plan. Hoped this would all be worth it.

Marty was trying to reconcile this new person, this  _Crash,_ with what he knew about Rust. All those car rides, all those philosophical musings in direct defiance of Marty's 'silent reflection' rule, all those days spent keeping Rust at bay in their tumultuous office, that night Rust had turned up on his doorstep crying and drunk– after _all that_ , Marty had been sure he had an idea about who Rust was.

Now, as he stared in transfixed horror at the shine on Rust's skin, his flushed face, his lithe body...

...he felt like a fucking fool for ever having believed he could comprehend the fathomless depths of Rustin Cohle.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those of you who may be confused by the sudden change in plot, this is now a canon-divergent fic in which rust decides to rejoin the iron crusaders in 1995. i hope you enjoy the chapters to come~~~ <3


	9. wish i cared less, but i'm afraid i don't

Crash let himself fall limp between two bodies, eyes closed. He was drifting very far away from his body, occupying another space entirely, and he thought about Purgatory. He thought about scriptures, about faith, about a place between life and death. Skin was hot against him, breaths heavy on his neck and against his temple, and he was perched somewhere beyond where consciousness could reach.

 _Get off him, a’right,_ a voice said, _he’s done._

There was some argument, and then Crash was being yanked upwards, his head rolling on his shoulders. He found himself gazing up into the curiously angry eyes of Ginger, meditating on the genuine affection he found there. That was weird.

 _C’mon,_ Ginger said, his voice ebbing and flowing through the liquid mess of Crash’s concentration, _get up, Crash._

Crash did. Not gracefully, or elegantly. He stumbled, pivoting on Ginger’s axis, held upright only by insistent hands. The grip against his skin was comfortingly steady, and Crash leaned into it. He remembered that he was naked when Ginger’s leather jacket pressed up against his side. Even if he had’ve possessed the capacity to give a shit about the fact he was walking around dripping with come and dented by bruising, he wouldn’t have cared. Using his body had never been that much of an intellectual leap, not when it was his best asset. He was a sentient lump of meat, and his corporeal form was only as important as the advantages it could offer.

He sighed, sought out a cigarette from Ginger’s pocket, fingers fumbling as the world around him fell away in a swirling, blurred mess. He knew they were moving, but that was about it.

He dragged a hand through his hair tiredly, sweeping it back off his face.

_And the Lord hath washed away their filth, by the spirit of judgement and by the spirit of burning. For we all must appear before the judgement of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body._

Down he went. On his back, onto a dirty mattress. Oh, the familiarity of this, springs cutting into his back like the embrace of an old friend. He arched his back up off the tattered sheets, stretched his arms out above his head, closed his eyes and let his legs fall open. He knew what was coming next, and patiently waited for the weight of Ginger’s body to trap him in place.

“Gotta get down to business,” Crash purred, putting the cigarette between his lips, waiting for Ginger to light it before the fucking started, “got some dealers lookin’ to trade. Ex-Mex Army. Need meth for the maquiladoras, willin’ to trade you their coke.”

There was a hushed noise near his head. Like the dry slide of leaves in the autumn, a sound echoing from a distant childhood, a sun-drenched fairytale. His father’s face flashed briefly before his eyes. _Rust’s_ father. Crash wondered what the old man would think if he saw him now.

The thought hurt.

“C’mon, Ginger,” he muttered, “light me up already. Shit.”

There was the unmistakable _snap_ of Ginger’s engraved lighter, prompting Crash to breathe in, holding in a mouthful of hot smoke before letting it out real slow. Yeah. Yeah, _that_ was the shit. Fuck, this felt good. He didn’t need those memories, he didn’t need that guilt, that gravelly voice telling him, _you got no goddamn loyalty, son._ For now he could pretend that this would never end. He could pretend he wasn’t here for a purpose, that he could stay high eternally, forever submerged in the omnipresence afforded to him by methamphetamines and cocaine. Crash had no parents. He had no daughter. He was a singular entity, cut loose, wild and free.

“I got a real job I’m s’posed to be doin’ here, Ginger,” he slurred, “gotta get down to it. Now, these boys I’ve runnin’ with in Mexico, they-”

_Shut up, Crash._

Crash blinked his eyes open dully, made sure he’d heard that right. Ginger’s voice was far away.

“What’d you say?”

“I said _shut up,”_ Ginger repeated, his voice sharpening in Crash’s ears, “stop talkin’.”

Crash frowned up at him, eyes focussing on Ginger only after several seconds of intense effort. Ginger was pacing agitatedly, which didn’t help.

“The fuck you so shitty ‘bout?”

Ginger grit his jaw, rubbed at his face, stroked his fingers through his beard a few times. Grabbed a blanket from the mess of stuff in the corner. Christ, there was crap  _everywhere,_ but Crash almost found the clutter endearing. He supposed he’d been searching for the chaos of the Crusaders since the shootout in Port Houston; anyone who’d seen his apartment, seen the cardboard boxes in the corner and his bare mattress, couldn’t argue with that. This was the life he was used to.

Ginger threw the blanket over him. Crash frowned, took the cigarette from his mouth.

“What’re you doin’? Huh?”

Ginger sat down beside him, the mattress dipping under his weight. Crash started to get up, but Ginger’s hand landed hard on his sternum, holding him down. Crash’s breath sputtered from his mouth hollowly. He wondered (only briefly, of course) about the injuries he was carrying but couldn’t feel. That was a problem for later. The most he could feel at present were the blanket fibres against his naked body, and the scratchy sensation wasn’t irritating enough to warrant getting up. The desire to sleep was overpowering.

“The fuck-”

“Quiet. Just… quiet, Crash. Goddamn.”

Ginger lay down beside him, reaching an arm around Crash to pull him close. Crash frowned, confused, as Ginger settled in. This wasn’t how their routine went.

“What-”

“Just go to sleep.” Ginger told him. "Tomorrow, I got somethin' I wanna talk to you 'bout, okay? But for now just..."

He hesitated, a breath touching on Crash's cheek. Then he ducked his head forward with uncharacteristic shyness, planting a soft, careful kiss on Crash's lips.

"...just sleep, here. With me."

Crash was confused as fuck. He wanted to argue the point. Wanted to pay heed to the creeping unease that was itching through his blood, the instinct that said _something’s not fucking right here,_ but he couldn’t.

Blankness slid across his vision, and then he was gone.

 

***

 

Marty watched Rust being led away by a bearded man. Watched them disappear through a doorway, into what appeared to be a bedroom.

“If this was your plan, Rust,” he whispered, “it’s a god fuckin’ awful one.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw y'all can find me on [my tumblr](https://jaketheodoresmith.tumblr.com/post/161756089511/fanart-for-my-canon-divergent-fic-in-which-rust) where i sometimes post fanart


	10. closed every door, and washed away no sin

The ceiling above him was cracked, cream paint peeling to reveal grey plaster.

The first thing Rust felt when he woke up was… confusion. He’d slept deeply, better than he had in years, which didn’t make sense. Not with the amount of drugs he’d taken, or the things he’d done to win over Ginger’s trust and complacency. He’d presented himself like a foreign dignitary to the king of the Crusaders, and that was not a feat that came without consequences; he hadn’t expected to have a good night’s sleep for at least a _month_ after this escapade.

He blinked himself awake, eyelashes glued together by sleep, and it very immediately became apparent to him why he’d slept so well. Ginger was curled against him, breathing softly against Rust’s shoulder. Rust had been drugged into unconsciousness by the one addiction he’d never really known how to resist.

Human closeness.

Intimacy.

Which brought a question to mind– why the _fuck_ was Ginger acting like they were some kind of _couple,_ and why the hell hadn’t Rust woken up with a cock in his ass, as per their usual procedure?

Rust sat up carefully, trying not to wake the man beside him. He winced as bruises and aches (punishment for last night’s debauchery) screamed in protest of every movement. The threadbare blanket fell down his bare chest, and he shuddered. He was still naked, and the come that had dried between his legs was sticky, cold and repugnant– his mouth tasted murky, bitter with a flavour he’d spent years forgetting. He needed a hit to bring Crash back, to dull the disgust and immerse him in wonderful, magnificent apathy. He needed to slip back into his old skin, needed to spend _days_ high so that, when he did eventually sober up, Rustin Cohle would be buried so deep that he’d never surface again. He’d spent four years living as another man, and _fuck,_ he wanted nothing more than to repeat history.

But he couldn’t. Dora Lange’s mouth was at his ear, whispering secrets of the occult and begging him to _solve this, save me, save me-_

He needed to call Marty. He needed to wake Ginger the fuck up, and get him to set up a meeting with Ledoux so that Rust could deal out some old-fashioned justice from the barrel of his SIG-Sauer P226 handgun (or, provided they went the way of the law, put the motherfucker behind bars instead. _Ha._ What a fucking joke. _)_

“Ginger,” Rust said, or tried too. All that came out was a hoarse croak, and he cleared his throat drunkenly, rubbing at his eyes. Jesus _fucking_ Christ, he had a hangover. He’d have to wean himself off the drugs. Keep using for a while, even after this case was over. Or he could go cold turkey. Neither option particularly appealed to him, because they both resulted in him being clean.

“Ginger,” he tried again, voice forming coherent sounds now, “Ginger, wake th’fuck up. _Ginger_.”

Ginger didn’t stir. Seemed the meth he’d taken had hit him harder than expected.

Rust got out of bed, slapping his hand on the wall to catch himself when he stumbled. Once his equilibrium had settled, he looked around the room, wondering where the fuck his clothes had gone. _Ah, shit._ They were still outside, on the fucking concrete. Goddamn. He’d have to wander out there with a bare ass and all.

 _In for a penny, in for a fucking pound,_ he thought, sweeping his hair off his face, features settling into dull boredom. He squared his shoulders, threw caution and pride to the wind, and swung open the bedroom’s cracked door.

He left Rust behind, dipping himself back into Crash’s personality.

There were a group of Crusaders gathered around a dead bonfire, drinking beer and passing a bong around the circle. They hooted and jeered when he emerged, but he didn’t cover himself or bother acting shy.

“Lookin’ for somethin’, pretty boy?” One of them asked, his juvenile and underdeveloped humour earning him a bout of laughter from his friends.

Crash stepped forward, right in front of the Crusader who had dared speak up. He tilted his head, looked down at the man, and the guy's body language immediately telegraphed his discomfort. Nakedness was power, and the psychological advantage sat entirely with Crash. All the other men fell silent.

He let the moment stretch on for a long time before he spoke.

“My clothes,” Crash said eventually, quiet and dangerous, “please.”

The man swallowed thickly, had a nervous gulp of his beer. He reached under his seat, produced a bundle of leather and denim, thrust it into Crash’s arms. Crash regarded him blankly, and did not move. He stood there, made sure that the clothes weren’t obscuring his cock where it hung between his thighs. The Crusader practically squirmed in his seat, and _fuck,_ this was fucking _hilarious._

“…The hell else you want?” The man eventually asked, his voice quaking with false bravado.

Crash didn’t move. He was the wild outlaw, the crazy biker, the mad junkie that everyone whispered about, the guy who would do anything for a price; the rabid dog that even Ginger couldn’t quite tame. He was the power and the glory and the _motherfucking psycho._

And everyone knew it.

Crash smiled. “You do that again and I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

He turned away, walked back to the room. No one dared whisper a word until the door closed behind him.

 

 

***

 

Marty had stayed up all fucking night. When he finally got the call, he was seated at his kitchen bench, head spinning from the amount of caffeine he'd consumed in an effort to stay awake. He hadn't known when Rust would call– or, in truth, whether Rust would call at all. The things Marty had seen last night were making him question every single thing he knew about his partner.

"Rust," he hissed, yanking the phone towards his ear the moment it started ringing, "what the  _fuck_ is happening? Why didn't you call? I've been listening to police channels  _all fucking night,_ thinkin' I was gonna find you in a goddamn ditch somewhere!"

 _"Chill the fuck out, Marty,"_ Rust drawled, sounding so unlike himself that Marty wanted to cry,  _"I ain't gotten a way to meet with Ledoux yet, but I'll get that sorted today. You just make sure you're ready, a'right?"_

"Fuck you, Rust."

_"I'm the one goin' above and beyond for the fuckin' job, so don't you dare take that tone with me, you asshole. Be ready. If not, we lose the only shot we've got. You hearin' this?"_

Marty bit at his cheek. He felt sick again, as he remembered what he'd seen. Flashes of skin assaulted his mind, wet and brown and dripping, the memory of Rust's pained face making him quake with fear (and something hotter, something more visceral and carnal than he had ever before felt). He opened his mouth to say something,  _anything_ –

Rust hung up.

Marty dropped the phone and punched a hole in the wall.

 

 


	11. rip that heart off your sleeve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, uh. this is becoming an actual story. with feelings and plot.  
> (and to think, all i wanted to do was write a porny oneshot....)

There had been fear in Marty’s voice. Not just irritation, or annoyance.

_Fear._

Rust put the phone back in the receiver, stared at it for a while, glanced over his shoulder a few times to make sure none of the Crusaders had followed him or heard the call. He’d made sure that what he’d said could’ve been interpreted as reporting to a mob boss or some such shit, but still. You could never be too careful around these dodgy fucks.

He took a packet of powder out of his pocket, shook some onto his hand. Snorted it down fast, rocked back on his heels when it took hold.

Marty’s call had left him feeling… funny. An itch inside him, a scratching sensation, said that Marty knew more than he was telling. This wasn’t just about Rust not reporting back. This wasn’t just _worry._ This was fear, plain and simple. Marty was scared, and Rust didn’t know why.

Rust was exhausted, his body aching in ways that wouldn't wash away, and all he wanted to do was return to Marty's side in the hopes of being treated with friendliness, or even just civility. He wanted Marty– or someone,  _anyone–_ to just  _give a shit_ about him.

But he let it fade. He let it slip away, through his fingers, disintegrating deep into the recesses of his mind.

He let himself become Crash.

 

***

 

When he got back, Ginger was still asleep. He’d half shrugged off his leather jacket in his sleep, and the curves of his tattooed shoulders were oddly vulnerable. His skin was pale, always had been– he was weirdly embarrassed about it, about the way he looked, and Crash knew without a doubt that the man had been bullied as a kid for having red hair. Ginger was a reputed gangster, a legitimised killer; no one saw his weaknesses because no one had the balls to look past his _accomplishments_ with the Crusaders. Crash was the only one who dared see his gentleness, his affection, his friendliness. Probably because he was the only one who was the recipient of it.

He lit a cigarette, stood watching Ginger. He remembered the way Ginger had fallen asleep against him, and decided that he had an angle to work with. If he was right, Ginger had developed _feelings_ for him, which meant Crash could exploit him. This was an opportunity.

Crash took off his jacket, dropped it on the floor. Swept a couple of curls down his forehead, licked at his lips, got himself looking good. When he was ready, he shoved Ginger’s shoulder, had another drag as Ginger jerked himself awake.

“Crash,” Ginger mumbled, rubbing at his eyes, “shit, the fuck’s the time…?”

“Past midday.” Crash leaned his weight back on the decrepit bedside table, let his legs spread, just a little. Ginger’s eyes went wandering, and Crash thought, _bingo, baby._

“Listen, Crash, I… I got somethin’ I wanna talk to you ‘bout.”

“I know. You said that last night.”

Ginger sat up, put his face in his hands. He looked sad, with his jacket hanging off him, his white singlet stained and loose. Crash felt a pang of remorse, and didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Listen, that stuff you were sayin’ ‘bout a trade, coke for crystal-”

“Yeah.”

“That ain’t happenin’.”

Crash raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “S’cuse me?”

“I ain’t givin’ you no deal, Crash.” Ginger folded his hands, fidgeting, looking down.

“And why’s that?” Crash calmly tapped out his cigarette on a cracked ashtray beside his thigh.

“’Cause you…”

“’Cause I _what,_ Ginger. We had a deal. I put on a goddamn show, it’s your _fuckin’_ turn-”

“If I give you a deal, you’ll fuck off back to Mexico.”

Crash frowned. Ginger was still looking down at his hands, the skin straining tight over his knuckles.

“You ain’t outta practice, Crash, I'll tell you that much,” Ginger continued, laughing, his voice pained. He rubbed at his mouth, shaking his head. “What, you been whorin' yourself out Mexicans too now, huh?”

Crash took a slow breath, considered how exactly to proceed.

“I’m a floater, Ginger. I’m a goddamn trick. This is the fuckin’ job.”

“Yeah, well,” Ginger snapped, “I got a problem with that.”

Crash nodded, took the cigarette out from between his lips. He looked down at his lap, and just like clockwork, Ginger looked up at him. Easy as pie.

“I gotta have a meeting with Ledoux, Ginger,” he softened his voice, let it hover in his throat, let it rumble gently, “that ain’t up for debate.”

When Ginger stood, Crash didn’t look up. He fluttered his eyelashes a bit, had a pull of his cigarette. Ginger reached out and stroked a hand down his cheek, gentle and easy. Fuck, Crash was almost _shocked._ He hadn’t seen this coming. Ginger was acting like Crash was made of porcelain, like he was something precious, something to be sheltered.

“What they got over you, huh?” Ginger asked quietly.

“Nothin’,” Crash murmured, “just… gotta get it done, y’know. Or else…”

No need to elaborate. No need to decorate the unsaid with details, because Ginger knew better than most what cartels were capable of when middlemen didn’t come through.

Ginger moved forward, between Crash’s legs, thighs brushing denim. Crash closed his eyes, let Ginger tilt his head up, seek out his lips. He tasted chemicals and fire.

It almost felt good to be wanted.

“I’ll get you a meeting,” Ginger whispered, “with Ledoux or his partner, Dewall. I’ll get it done, Crash. For you.”

Crash nodded, their mouths bumping, brushing together. Ginger moved closer still, crowding Crash up against the bedside table, his intentions clear. Crash let himself slump against Ginger, let his body bow and bend the way he knew Ginger wanted. He expected Ginger to get started, to get on with it, but Ginger just continued kissing him, cupping his neck. Slow and gentle.

Crash felt a spark of something, a tug of heat behind his ribs. Ginger was being _gentle_ with him, and it was cutting him to his core.

“Ginger,” he breathed, not even sure what he was going to say.

“Yeah,” Ginger replied, low and steady, “yeah, Crash. I got you.”

Ginger pushed Crash down onto the bed, eased his clothes off, mouthed a trail of kisses down his trembling body until Crash was jerking like a puppet, his mouth opening and closing with sounds he didn't understand how to control. When Ginger knelt over Crash, guided himself inside, their eyes met. Crash wanted to look away, didn't want Ginger to  _see him_ in a way no one else had ever cared to before, but Ginger held his jaw still.

"Stay with me," Ginger murmured, almost beseechingly, his hips flush against Crash's skin, "you ain't ever gotta leave this place."

Crash closed his eyes, bit down into his lip. Ginger moved slowly, easing in and out, and the quiet between them was foreign, frightening. Crash couldn't handle that pace, couldn't stand the warmth that was growing in his chest. This  _meant something,_ which was never what he'd signed up for.

"Fuck me," Crash hissed, "c'mon, just fuck me, do it-"

"Shh,"

"Ginger, hurry the _fuck_ up-"

"Shh, shh. Don't fight it. Know it feels good. You ain't gotta fight no more."

Crash shook his head, but then Ginger was kissing him, laying flat over Crash's body and burying himself deep. A strangled sound whimpered from Crash's chest, the sound of an invisible line being crossed. He knew he should lift his knees, fold his legs against Ginger's back, but he couldn't stand to move.

This felt...

_...good._

"I can't," he whispered, "Ginger, I fuckin' can't-"

"You can, Crash. You can."

Crash's eyes were stinging, tears clinging to his lashes, and he didn't know where this had come from. Didn't understand how he'd fallen so deep. He knew this was perfect for the plan, knew that this was the ideal way to get their suspect secured.

But this was different. This wasn't just fucking, just a night of wild sex and potent drugs.

This was something he'd never prepared for.

He clung onto the sheets, breathing hard. Ginger kissed him, tender and gentle, like he didn't know he was pulling Crash apart, piece by piece. It hurt, it hurt  _so much,_ because Ginger actually cared about him, and that made Crash want things he couldn't have. He'd never been allowed this, always been denied comfort when it should've been free. His wife. His child. His friends. Rust was seeping through the lie, his pain and his loss made  _real_ again, and Crash was sobbing as Ginger fucked him.

"Stay with me," Ginger panted, "stay, Crash.  _Stay."_

He almost believed that he could.

 

 


	12. got high from a holy vein, crashed down in a hurricane

Afterwards, Ginger fucked off to make some calls, and Crash did lines off the bedside table. He took too much too fast, fell down on his ass, hand against his face as the burn corroded his skull and warped his concentration. The room imploded, shrinking and expanding all at once, so he lay back and let it fold in on him. He made choked, gurgled coughing noises, felt warm blood trickling down his lips.

Too much. Too goddamn much.

But it was taking hold, hitting him right, and he nodded along in agreement with the chemicals firing nuclear reactions inside his synapses. No, this wasn't an overdose, not quite. He was good. It was all good, baby.

 _I got this,_ he thought, satisfied with his own strength. _Yeah, shit, I got this._

He was back on track.

 

 


	13. let the meaning sink, like the sun goes down

Crash spent most of the day sweating off the meth, letting the sensations wash over him, pull him deep.

There was a reason his codename was Crash. He’d never done well with comedowns, never handled the consequences well. He was still lying on the floor, the taste of blood thick in his throat, aluminium and ash choking him into unconsciousness. He was content to struggle, coughing occasionally, and rolling over onto his side didn’t seem like it would offer enough advantage to be worth the effort. While he thought he was coming down off the hit, he couldn't really tell whether he was still high or not, and it did occur to him that something else might be wrong.

_And as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind, so shall the stars of the sky fall to the earth, and the key to the bottomless pit shall be given to him._

Yeah, he’d been given the key, alright.

And he was settling in to stay.

 

***

 

Next time he woke, he was fucking _frozen._

It took him a while to figure out why. His hands flew out, gripping the side of the cracked bath, icy water stabbing his skin and making him convulse with shivers. Ginger looked down at him, face wracked by panic, eyes wide and scared. Crash felt like his brain had been scooped out, mushed up, and then shoved back in again. His fingers felt too big, and his body didn't belong to him.

“Well shit,” Crash slurred, “guess it was a fuckin’ overdose after all.”

“You _think so,_ motherfucker?”

Ginger turned off the water, heaved Crash up onto his feet. Crash fell against him, eyes closed, and then he was being wrapped in a towel, guided away, his feet moving without conscious intent. Ginger took him to another room (a _nicer one,_ he noticed), sat him down in an armchair that actually had padding and cushions. Crash could’ve died from shock.

He flicked a sodden curl of hair out of his eyes, gazed around unseeingly. Ginger was kneeling beside him, drying him off with yet another towel. He reached up to scrub at Crash’s hair, and Crash slapped him away. Or tried to. His arms gave up halfway through.

“Don’t need no fuckin’ _coddling,”_ he insisted.

“Yeah, well, seems to me like the shit you’ve been usin’ in Mexico ain’t as strong as the shit you’re usin’ here.” Ginger persisted with drying his hair, ignoring Crash’s efforts. “Don’t you ever do that again, d’you hear me? Can’t have no fuckin’ deal goin’ down if my man’s not even stable enough to handle his own hits. Jesus fuck, you _asshole,_ we haven’t had an OD here for a good solid year. It hurts our fuckin’ rep."

Ginger’s voice was gruff. Angry. Crash felt that pull of heat again, that spark deep in his chest, and for some reason he thought about Marty.

“You really do give a shit ‘bout me, don’t you?” He asked quietly.

Ginger nodded, his mouth pressed together into a hard line.

Crash nodded back after a pause.

He leaned forward, kissed Ginger softly.

This was the most honest he’d been throughout their goddamn relationship, and it felt like the start of something new. He could see a dark future stretching ahead of him, an outlaw's life, and when Ginger reached below the towel and took his hand, he realised he needed to make a choice. 

 

 


	14. love has been here and gone

Neon pulsed, reflecting of Marty’s hood, making the emptiness of the lot seem even more cavernous. Gas pumps stood like disciples of decay, corrosion turning them a dirty bronze in the purple night. He wanted to get out of the car, wanted to sit on the roof and look up at the stars (try and see what Rust did, try and tell himself stories, hear Rust’s voice rising and falling like poetry he’d never heard). He tapped his fingers against the side of his beer, felt condensation creeping down the glass, moisture making his palms cold. Worry was turning his stomach inside-out, making him twitch with impatient unease.

Sitting here felt like… he was perched at the edge of the earth.

The things he’d seen frightened him, and he just wanted everything to return to the way it was before. He wanted to see Rust’s pained half-smiles, his lips tight and curved like they were ready to string up an arrow and launch it into the sky. He wanted a scattering of cigarette ash over the passenger seat, like a myriad of stars exploded into fine dust. He wanted to grumble at Rust, act like he wasn’t thankful for every second they spent together. He wanted long trips into backwater towns, he wanted long stretches of road narrated by a drawling, hypnotic tone– he wanted _Rust_ back. He didn’t want Crash, didn’t want to see Rust disappear down into a place he couldn’t follow.

A noise cut through the silence. A growl, becoming a roar, and then Rust was pulling into the lot, the wheels of his bike crusted with mud. He was all sleek leather and reflective black, hair plastered against his skull from the force of wind. Marty watched him with a tight jaw, a lump in his throat.

 _Just you and me on this,_ Rust had said.

Marty desperately wanted to believe that was still true.

Rust got off the motorcycle, cutting the engine, the silence erupting around them both like a tangible weight. Rust (or whatever he was calling himself now) shook his head, mussing his hair, strides loose and liquid as he approached the car.  _He’s high,_ Marty realised, a sinking feeling twisting up his stomach.

Rust got in. The stench of cigarettes was so strong that Marty put a hand over his mouth.

“You reek,” he grumbled, feigning annoyance, but he couldn’t hide the grief in his voice. Rust’s lips were pink and swollen, his body settling against the seat with stiff discomfort, and his upturned collar couldn’t hide the bruises on his neck. Marty knew what those marks meant. Knew the faceless men that had left them.

“Hello to you too, Marty,” Rust muttered, taking out a cigarette that most certainly did not contain tobacco. Marty grabbed it from between his fingers.

“How about you give it a fuckin’ rest, okay? Christ. Just… tell me what you’ve got. Tell me you got it done.”

Rust looked at him, eyelids weighed down by a heaviness Marty had never been able to understand, his stare trapping Marty in place. Their gazes met, and Marty thought, _shit._ He started to look away, but it was too late, because Rust had already crawled inside his head, nestled down among his thoughts and seen Marty’s deepest horrors. Laid out like a fucking book.

“…You saw.”

Marty swallowed, looked away. He couldn’t think of a reply. He handed the cigarette back, and Rust lit up.

They didn’t speak for a long time. Marty watched the neon flicker.

“What you… do in your spare time, Rust,” Marty cleared his throat, “I got no business judgin’ you for that.”

Rust barked out a laugh. “Fuck you.”

“This is- This is _hard_ for me, a’right? Seein’ you like that was-”

“This ain’t my fuckin’ _spare time,_ you piece of shit. This is _for the fuckin’ case.”_

Marty felt bile rise in his throat. He gripped his beer tight, had a deep pull of it, let the alcohol cascade down his throat in the hopes it would make the sick feeling inside him go away.

“Don’t- Don’t say that.”

“Why the fuck not? It’s the truth.”

Marty bit his cheek, tried not to throw up. “You let them do… You let them _do that do you,_ for… for the fuckin’ _case?”_

He whispered the words, could barely even get them out, but Rust wasn’t on his wavelength. He laughed again, bitter and angry, too loud for the small space between them, the silence they were surrounded by. Marty kept looking out the windscreen, because he couldn’t stand look at Rust again.

“…You know where I was, few months ‘fore I met you?”

Rust’s voice had softened. Marty shrugged sharply, had another drink.

“No.”

“I was in a psychiatric ward. After I got shot, they… chucked me in there. Reckoned they could fix me up, y’know. After all this, after everythin’ I did while I was with the Crusaders… Shit, no goddamn medicine on the planet could fix me.”

Marty wanted to punch Rust just to make him shut up. He didn’t want to know this. He didn’t want to hear the _pain_ in Rust’s voice, because it hurt him too.

“See, the thing is, Marty,” Rust continued, his voice scraping out of his throat with a raw, aching honesty, “this is the life I’m meant for. Even got someone who’ll do right by me, who wants me around.”

 _I want you around,_ Marty wanted to say.

“What,” he said instead, snapping angrily, “a drug-dealing biker? Huh? What the fuck’re you thinkin’, Rust? That you could just _stay here?_ You’re some kinda queer now, is that it? Wanna live happily ever after, gettin’ fucked up the ass by random gangsters, too high to even know what’s goin’ on?”

Rust flinched hard. Marty hated every word he was spitting, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“We got a job to do. You tell me what you fuckin’ know, and you do it _now.”_

Rust didn’t reply, and Marty lost his nerve; he turned his head, finally, mouth tightened into a snarl. He glared at Rust, demanding a reply, but Rust just watched him, tired and ruined where he sat.

“Didn’t know you cared so much, Marty.”

Marty leaned across the car, fast and violent, hands fisting Rust’s collar and pushing him up against his door. His beer bottle landed on the floor with a sharp clatter, accompanied by Rust's tumbling cigarette. Rust made a broken noise as the door handle rammed into his back.

“ _Fuck_ you.”

Rust’s eyelids lowered, his mouth parting, and then they were kissing.

Marty froze up, shock pummelling through him like pure adrenaline, his heart sprinting fast as helicopter blades, his hands shaking. But he redirected it, grabbing Rust’s neck, scrambling up out of his seat and forcing his knees to fold on either side Rust’s hips. He knew that he shouldn’t do this, knew this was a mistake, but this was too _hyperreal_ to resist. The neon outlined Rust’s face with a green glow, surreal and vivid, and he could taste the light, as real and palpable as the sliding warmth of Rust's tongue. This couldn’t be happening. This _couldn’t_ be real.

It was only when Rust’s hands wandered to his waist, long fingers curling against his belt, that Marty snapped out of it. He pulled back, enough that he could _breathe._ Didn’t help at all, but he pretended it did. Pretended he knew what he was doing.

“Do you want this?” Rust asked him, whispered words clouding Marty’s mouth. His hands moved, his fingers arching up under Marty’s crotch, palming him softly.

Marty made a helpless sound, shock and heat whiplashing through him. Rust's hands fell into his lap, and he sighed. As if in apology, to soothe the wound he’d just opened in Marty’s chest, he gently kissed the side of Marty’s mouth, the peck soft enough to make Marty want to cry.

“You ain’t ready,” he murmured, “you ain’t ready to want this, Marty.”

Marty shook his head. Didn’t even know what that meant, what he was trying to say.

“I can’t wait around. Not for somethin’ you can’t give me.”

“You can’t just-” Marty’s voice trembled, “You can’t just _do that_ and then _leave-”_

“I've got the address of Ledoux's cookhouse, you can call it in tomorrow-”

“I don’t give a shit about Ledoux, Rust, you can’t just-”

“I’ll see you again.” Rust promised, a tremor breaking apart his voice. He took Marty’s face between his hands, kissed him again, so tenderly that Marty hated him even more. “I’ll see you again, Marty.”

_No. No, you won’t. You won’t._

Marty pulled at Rust’s jacket, yanked the leather aside so that he could kiss his neck. Rust seemed to know what he needed, seemed to understand that Marty had to have this, at least once, before this was over.

_Don’t go. Please don’t leave me._

 

***

 

Marty fucked Rust hard, fast and brutal, like they were running out of time. Which they were. He knew that he was hurting Rust, but it hurt him just as much– and he wanted to leave a mark, wanted Rust to _know_ what this _meant._

“Marty,” Rust gasped, “Fuck, Marty,”

He shoved at Marty’s chest, struggled to push himself up against the door, his head knocking against glass as Marty jutted his hips forward and backwards. There was moisture on Rust’s cheeks, drops of salt water, and Marty knew they were both crying. He gripped Rust's thighs, lifting his legs, but he couldn't be  _close_ enough, couldn't be  _deep_ enough inside Rust, because there wasn't enough  _time-_

“Slow down,” Rust’s voice shook from his lips, his mouth tight when he leaned forward, draping his long arms over Marty’s shoulders. “ _Slow down-”_

“I can’t,” Marty choked, “I can’t-”

“Slow, Marty. Slow.” Rust breathed, and then he was arching his body, his chest bare, clothes half-torn off him. “Slow down.”

Marty pulled back to see him. To savour him.

Rust smiled. It was a precarious expression, a face he’d never before made, a broken grin that wobbled on his lips and fell away when Marty’s breath hitched.

“I can’t,” Marty told him, unable to summon any more words than those two, “I… I _can’t.”_

Rust hugged him close, the curves of his shoulders damp with sweat. Marty couldn’t move his hips, couldn’t continue now that he’d stopped.

They stayed like that, together for the last time.

Aching.

 

***

 

Later, Marty watched him walk away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do not despair, my lovelies, this is not the end <3
> 
> (sorry for any mistakes, my injuries are making it hard to write.)


	15. every part of me, every part of you

Marty went home.

Rust had scrawled the coordinates of Ledoux’s cookhouse on the back of Marty’s hand with a blue pen, and the ink seemed to be burned into his skin, indented into his flesh. Those letters were his last connection to Rust. Their final moments together.

(Rust’s clothes pulled haphazardly back on, his hair messy and his buttons hanging loose, Marty’s fly unzipped in testament to what they’d just done, words building up in Marty's throat like a silent scream that just wouldn't form, pleading demands he would never be able to voice– _please stay, please don’t go, you’re a masochistic timebomb waiting to go off and if you go down this road you’ll be dead within a year, I care about you, I care about you, I care about you, I’ll do anything you want, please just STAY- )_

He could still feel the ghost of Rust’s fingers, gripping his hand as they stood beside the car, silence between them. There had been no final words. No last goodbye. Just Rust disappearing off into the night, darkness bleeding over him until he was submerged in it. Marty was sure he'd regret that most of all.

Rust had given him the key to his apartment, told him to get his stuff out so that the police wouldn’t suspect Marty had anything to do with his disappearance. It weighed heavy in his pocket, like a burden, like a curse. He didn’t have the strength to go to Rust’s place, so he sat at his kitchen bench, considered pouring himself a drink. But he didn’t want to lose himself to the numbness of alcohol, didn’t want the memories to slip away yet. He wanted to cling to every piece of Rust he had left.

Marty wondered if he’d forget him. If he could ever erase Rust’s ghost, ever forget the way Rust had moaned, quiet and helpless, a mantra of wordless pleas falling from his mouth-

_\- Marty bowed over him, their bodies entwined and close, the tight heat of Rust's body, the way Rust had jerked and stiffened, a pain in his face that had felt like justice as Marty braced his hand on the window, pushed deep enough to make Rust's eyes tremble closed-_

It hadn't been romantic. It hadn't been loving or kind. It had been painful, angry, and violent with the force of their combined grief. Marty knew his car would feel empty now, a hollow left where Rust had once reclined, long-limbed and exhausted, gazing out the window with a half-lidded gaze, wrapped up in those tight clothes that had fit him so well. He knew he would forever glance over to the passenger seat and remember Rust writhing against the door, head tipped back, eyes screwed shut, whimpers breaking free from his long throat.

 _Oh god, I fucked a man,_ Marty thought, putting his hands over his face as if it would help him hide from the memories, _I fucked Rust, I fucked my partner-_

He was angry.

He was angry because Rust had left, and in all probability they would never meet again. He was angry that he gave a shit at all, furious that Rust had fallen into his life and disrupted the balance of every single fucking thing Marty had taken for granted. He was angry because Rust had been  _right._ He wasn’t ready. And he knew that, even if Rust had stayed, Marty wouldn't have had the strength to be with him. He'd never loved a man before. Never  _wanted_ a man before.

"Fuck you, Rust," Marty whispered into the silence of his house, "fuck you for making this so  _fucking_ hard."

There was nobody to answer him.

 

***

 

Rust pulled up outside the Crusaders' bar, parking his bike and stumbling off it. Everything hurt, and his eyes were stinging hot from tears he knew he had no right to be crying. He wiped at his face, sucked in a few deep breaths. The clear air surged into him, filling his lungs, and he looked up at the stars. Wondered if Marty was looking up at them too.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so goddamn sorry, Marty."

No reply was forthcoming.

He wondered what he'd expected.

There was a swell of noise from inside the bar, ending the spell. He adjusted his jacket, prepared himself before he walked inside. By the time he made it to the door, he was Crash again. Rustin Cohle was left outside in the dirt; nothing more than a shadow, a hazy memory made of dust and regret, a feeling that Martin Hart would be overcome by whenever he looked up at the night sky.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise this story will get happier guys :,)  
> i'm gonna have to take some time out of writing for a while, due to some unfortunate things, but as always you can find me on [my blog](https://jaketheodoresmith.tumblr.com/). i should be able to update in a week or so, depending on how i recover from this latest bout of sickness, and i'm also hoping to update [the brother, the butcher](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9632540/chapters/21762848) as soon as i can. thanks so much to everyone leaving comments and kudos, you genuinely are the reason i keep on writing ♥


	16. counting down the days gone by

LOUISIANA STATE POLICE CID

STATEMENT OF:  _HART, Martin Eric_

TIME OF STATEMENT: 2012-05-14, 13:02:32

[TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT]

GILBOUGH: _Tell us more about Cohle’s disappearance._

HART: _Why? That’s got nothing to do with Dora Lange or Ledoux._

PAPANIA: _We’re just trying to fill in all the gaps-_

HART: _Don’t bullshit me. Why’re you interested in Rust?_

GILBOUGH: _This was a high-profile case, detective. And we’re missing pieces of it._

HART: _[angry laugh] Bullshit. It’s a solved goddamn case, is what it is. This all happened seventeen years ago._

GILBOUGH: _Just help us out here, Marty. Tell us what you know._

_[long pause]_

HART: _Rust was… [pause, distressed] His daughter died, y’know, years before I met him. He had a thing about kids, always found them… hard to cope with. Even my kids._

PAPANIA: _How does that relate? He disappeared way before those two kids were found at the Ledoux property._

HART: _My point, you insensitive asshole, is that he was hurting. Right from the start. I always figured that case we took, it… pushed him too far. Hurt him too deeply. [long pause] Just… couldn’t handle it. I hoped, for a while, that he’d come back. I tried to contact him, kept ringing his house even though I knew he wouldn’t pick up. We looked around a bit, but no one had seen him– and, if I’m being honest, I don’t think anyone really cared except me. He wasn’t very popular. [laugh] His… [pause] His ex-wife came asking after him, about a year later. [long pause] That was hard. Having to tell her that Rust was gone. The look in her eyes… I think she suspected the worst._

GILBOUGH: _The worst?_

HART: _Rust, he… [pause] He’d talked about suicide before._

GILBOUGH: _To you?_

HART: _Yeah, when we first caught the Lange case. Said he didn’t have the constitution for it, but… things can change. People can change._

PAPANIA: _Yeah. People can._

HART: _What the fuck is that supposed to mean?_

GILBOUGH: _Nothing-_

HART: _[stands] Y’know what, fellas, I’m done. You’re coming after Rust, and I don’t want any part of it. Don’t contact me again._

GILBOUGH: _Mr Hart-_

HART: _He was a good detective, and a good man. I won’t talk to you._

HART: _[exits room]_

_[long pause]_

PAPANIA: _Awful protective of a man he ain’t seen for seventeen years, huh._

[END TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT]

 

 


	17. out of the black

Marty was _furious._

Or, at least, that’s what he was telling himself. Because the truth about how he felt was far more scary than he was prepared to admit (not to the cops, and _certainly_ not to himself, _fuck,_ he was on the precipice of _total insanity)_. So he went to a bar. Because what did Marty Hart do whenever he felt frightened?

He drank.

It’d been three months since he’d touched a drop, but that wasn’t going to stop him.

Not today.

He walked into the first crappy dive he found, the enclosed space curling in on him, welcoming him home into a darkness he knew well. Men were hunched over their drinks, shoulders slumped forward, foreheads down. The place stunk of old alcohol, a musky scent that would never quite wash away, no matter how many times the tables were wiped down or the floors were mopped. This was a no holds barred kind of place, full of brawlers and street fighters, and Marty sat down at the bar feeling reassured. These were his people.

This was where he belonged.

He set his elbows down, ordered a drink. The bartender gave him a brief nod but otherwise didn’t show any further interest– this wasn’t the kind of place where people _interacted,_ where people _spoke_ in tones more succinct than slurred curses and yelled obscenities.

He groaned and rubbed at his face. Dug his thumbs into his eyes, sucked in a breath through his teeth. A group of men nearby were playing pool, and their voices rose in a thunderous cacophony, jeering and bellowing. His head hurt. He wanted them to _be quiet,_ but that was a fucking stupid expectation, because this was a _bar._ This was a yawning tombstone, a crashing mess of life and noise, and the chaos was why he had come in the first place.

He let his hands drop onto the bar  _(sticky with alcohol, gluey with a residue built up over years of desperate indulgence)_ and sighed, taking a look around.

Most of the barflies were middle-aged, middle-income, middle-athleticism, just like him. They were all wearing collared shirts, but the professionalism was lost on them, stripped back to reveal bare-knuckled resentment. They were all just miserable people trying to laugh, trying to get through the day. Ordinarily, Marty would find the presence of such men comforting. He’d feel reassured, in some twisted, self-indulgent way.

But he felt too heavy for that. The past was weighing him down, and he needed a drink _right fucking now_ to keep memories of Rustin Cohle at bay, to help him forget. Help him ignore the pounding warmth breaking him apart piece by piece, severing him whole, as he tenderly remembered Rust saying, _I think human consciousness was a tragic misstep in evolution._

Fuck.

Fuck, that _voice…_

Marty felt his eyes water. He rubbed at his mouth, sniffed, tried not to cry. It’d been seventeen years, but he’d been kidding himself this entire time. Thinking he could _ever_ forget Rust. And this fucking police investigation _,_ it was bringing all that pain back.

He'd ruined his marriage the last time he'd let his obsession for finding Rust take hold; Maggie had never understood why he'd been in so much pain, and shit, he was never going to tell her. Not about Rust, not about his quest to _understand himself,_ and certainly not about the hookers he'd met in back rooms in a desperate attempt to feel  _something_ for another man.

“C’mon, give me my goddamn drink already,” he snapped, “fuck.”

Far from bothered, the seasoned bartender set his order in front of him. Marty grabbed the glass, downed it in a long series of gulps.

“Another.”

He waited for the next one to arrive, clearing his throat as the burn made its way down into his chest.

Someone sat down beside him.

The guy was wearing a leather jacket and heavy, steel-capped boots. Proper gang attire, no fuck-around shit. His hands were big, long fingers pitted with scars and adorned with silver rings, but the way he folded his arms on the bar seemed gentle, even graceful. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, messy and loose, strands hanging down over his angular face. He had wind-chafed cheeks, a blush reddening his coarse skin.

Marty gave him a sparse glance and then looked away again, well aware what price he’d pay for not keeping his eyes to himself. There was an insignia stitched onto the shoulder of the man’s jacket, and Marty knew without a doubt that there would be one on his back too.

Something niggled below his skin. An awareness he didn’t want to have. A realisation he wasn’t prepared to accept.

The man took off his jacket, shrugged it from his shoulders to reveal a loose grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Almost every inch of him was covered in tattoos, but it wasn’t until Marty saw the bird on his arm that the curiosity turned to white-hot shock, pummelling through him and freezing him in place. There was a snake winding around the bird now, the ink newer and brighter, but Marty knew what he was looking at.

He reached out. Grabbed the man’s shoulder.

The guy turned to look at him, his aged face calm and serene. There was a cluster of teardrops tattooed by his left eye, a thick moustache jarring Marty, making him tremble.

“…Rust?”

The man inclined his head to the side, blinked slowly, lethargically.

“S’pose so. Though I go by a different name now.”

Marty felt like he was going to faint. "You're- You're alive."

"Mm. That I am."

"This... This whole time, you...?"

Rust- or Crash,  _whoever the fuck he was–_ put a cigarette between his lips, mouth closing around the paper, dipping his head down and closing his eyes. When he was done, fucking  _taking his time,_ he breathed out a cloud of smoke and pursed his lips.

"Yep."

That was the last fucking straw.

Marty pulled back his arm and punched Rust between the eyes.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk about you, but i don't think marty would be chill about rust coming back after thinking he was dead for so many years
> 
> ([here's](https://jaketheodoresmith.tumblr.com/post/161756089511/fanart-for-my-canon-divergent-fic-in-which-rust) kinda what i imagine rust/crash to look like.)


	18. a trigger for a heart

It was hardly the reunion he’d imagined, the hundreds of times he’d daydreamed about seeing his partner again- but could he really be blamed? Rust’s head jerked back, a flash of surprise brightening his eyes before he was calm again, a hand rising to his face to check for a bleeding nose. Pain blossomed on Marty's knuckles, pounding. It'd been a long time since he'd hit someone.

“...Sorry, Marty,” he murmured, “know it's been a long time.”

He looked sad. Mournful. Apologetic.

Marty wanted to kiss him.

So he swung back his arm, and punched Rust again.

 

 


	19. let's burn the past, forget the truth

Somewhere in the middle of it all, the bartender got a few thugs to throw them out onto the street. Nobody really seemed to care about preserving either of them from injury (just wanted them out of the bar and to _stop making so much goddamn trouble you motherfuckers),_ which Marty supposed was a good thing because he knew without a sliver of doubt that Papania and Gilbough, the determined pricks, would be tracking him. If a police report was called in about his altercation with an Iron Crusader, the dots would be joined and they’d both be well and truly _fucked._ He was tied to Rust, whether he liked it or not. The fact only served to make him more furious– because, if he hadn’t been before, he was _livid_ now. Panting with exertion, unused to brawling after all these years, he turned to the ghost beside him to duly express his rage.

But he stopped.

Rust’s face was defined by an orange streetlight, the colour cheap and dirty, settling over him like a haze and shining off his jacket. He gathered his long hair up off the sweat-damp back of his neck, twisting it into a ponytail again, long fingers moving with practiced ease. He was all leather and hard edges, face just as birdlike and mysterious as it always had been, and Marty almost hated him for still being _like this._ Still beautiful and dangerous and _tempting._  He was wrecked and battered, his body exhausted by an outlaw’s life; rubbed-raw and rough, unpolished in a way he’d never been in their shared youth, his moustache untrimmed and long. By all rights he should’ve been ugly.

But he wasn’t.

“Fuck you, Rust,” Marty spat out. A dribble of blood, mixed with saliva, made its way down his chin. He wiped it away and Rust gave him a strange look. At first Marty misread it as concern, but then there was a flash of something pained in his eyes, and Marty knew what that expression _really_ meant.

_Rust._

That name, that legacy. That ghost Marty had lived with for so long. He wondered when someone had last called him Rust, instead of Crash.

_Is this even the same man?_

Marty stepped towards him, towards this stranger with his scars and his history, and sought out an answer from their closeness, the warmth he felt when their bodies touched and Rust’s shoulders jerked from being pushed against the bricks.

He slid their mouths together. A confidence Marty had never before felt overtook him, and he gave in to it. In his youth he’d needed liquid courage and a belly full of rage, but now he was at the end of the line and couldn’t have given two shits about his repressed shame. This was surreal enough to be a goddamn dream, and _fuck,_ he needed to know _who this man was._ Part of him was certain he was mad, sure he’d gone insane, because he’d held his own private funeral for Rustin Cohle and drank alone in a cemetery just to mourn the man he’d once loved. He’d _grieved._

All he knew now was that he was kissing a man up against a wall. And, without any additional rhyme or reason to dictate his decision-making, he pursued this intention with animalistic determination. He wasn’t young anymore, not youthful enough to languidly thrust his body and gyrate like some kind of hooker, but that wasn’t what this was about. He held Rust still by the neck as they kissed, the other hand yanking his leather jacket open, tearing at buttons so that he could press his palm against the raised ridges of bullet scars.

Rust made a small, broken noise, his head tipping back against the wall, mouth jerking away from Marty’s. Marty bit his neck, felt muscle and bone shift under his fingertips, ribs expanding in time with Rust's stuttered gasps. When he was done mapping the scarred regions of Rust’s chest (too fast, _not enough time for all the stories he’d never know),_ he dropped his hand to the front of Rust’s jeans and grabbed him. The hitched inhalation that Marty's roughness earned him…

…it made him stop.

Marty remembered that night.

He remembered Rust underneath him in the car, his body cramped into the space, knees parted to draw their bodies closer, nearer, _deeper._

He looked up, saw the raw look in Rust’s eyes. It sent a lightning bolt of _emotion,_ pure and undefinable, through him, and he trembled as the shock of their reunion faded into clarity.

“…Rust?”

His voice was tiny, high-pitched and helpless. Rust smiled, reached up to palm his neck.

“Yeah, Marty. It’s me.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to explore their 2012 relationship more, but i'm not in a very good place right now (mentally/emotionally/etc lmao), so this fic will have to end here. in the future i might write a sequel elaborating on everything else i intended to include in this story.
> 
> thanks very much for reading, everyone. comments would be cool.


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